Änder Schanck is a pioneer in Luxembourg. The country’s first organic farm gave rise to the Oikopolis Group, an associative economic model in which farmers, processors, and consumers are joint owners. Even supermarket chains became partners. Over his 35 years of experience, the most important thing he learned is that systems can only be changed by individuals. In conversation with Andrea Valdinoci, he explains how paint poisoning led him to his life’s work—and why, at 71, he sees the greatest opportunity for young people in buying land.
Andrea Valdinoci: Änder, how did you and your wife come to be so deeply involved in biodynamic agriculture and its marketing where you live?
Änder Schanck: In 1975, we purchased a house that needed renovating. My wife became ill from the materials we used there, especially the paints and varnishes. This made us wonder what was wrong. I took courses in building biology and came across the book Wir erlebten Rudolf Steiner: Erinnerungen seiner Schüler [We experienced Rudolf Steiner: Recollections of his students].1 This gave us a new perspective and inspired us to delve deeper into the questions of health, life, and their basic requirements. I came from a conventional farming background. A dialogue began with my brother Jos, who’d taken over the farm. We both took courses at the Forschungsring für biologisch-dynamische Wirtschaftsweise [Research circle for biodynamic agriculture],2 and in 1979/80 the farm was converted. At the time, it was the first organic farm in Luxembourg. My focus has always been on processing and marketing. This included baking bread every week and selling it in the city of Luxembourg, 70 kilometers away.
Then the opportunity arose for my wife to begin training at the Alanus University of Arts and Social Sciences in Alfter, Germany, and I accompanied her there as a stay-at-home dad with our two daughters. I now had the time and opportunity to meet people who were committed to developing healthy forms of society. I was particularly interested in ideas about social organisms, and mainly the question of associative economic activity. When I returned to Luxembourg and found that other farms had since converted to biodynamic farming, the time was ripe for concrete collaboration. The first step was to found the BioG cooperative [Bio Bauere Genossenschaft Lëtzebuerg, Organic Farmers’ Cooperative Luxembourg]. From there, everything else arose out of practical experience. The Naturata shops were established, then the wholesale business, followed by a real estate company for the construction of infrastructure. In 2005, the central holding company Oikopolis-Participations SA was founded. This is an Aktiengesellschaft [public limited company] with three groups of shareholders: first, the farmers, represented by the BIOG cooperative; then, the managers of the commercial enterprises, grouped together in Oikopolis GmbH; and third, the consumers as individual private shareholders. Oikopolis GmbH was converted into the Oikopolis Foundation in 2018, with the shareholders’ shares donated to the foundation. So, the owners of the Oikopolis Group are still the representatives of the essential players in the real economic chain.
You were one of the first in the industry to sign supply contracts with a supermarket chain that took the situation of farmers into account. You looked at the respective situation in a spirit of partnership and helped each other. You were involved in the “Kontokreis” [Account Circle] in which organic wholesalers in Europe formed a liquidity association with GLS Bank in order to be able to help each other quickly in special cases. What have you learned from all these projects and your commitment to creating practical and realistic solutions?
I realized fairly quickly that just a few organic shops would not be able to sell large quantities of products. This meant there would be limits to the expansion of organic farming. On the other hand, the largest supermarket chain in Luxembourg had been interested in our products for a while. We were well aware that such businesses follow the principle of “profit lies in purchasing.” This means that the first link in the value chain, usually the farm, has to bear the consequences. We were able to convince the chief buyer at the time that we could only deliver if we could eliminate the effects of this principle through a longer-term contract. The key point of this contract was their participation in the market discussions we organized, in which all participants in the value chain were to be involved. The contract was signed in 1994. Even where the meetings took place, it was clear that people on both sides found it possible to understand the other side. Of course, there were exceptions on both sides. But they remained exceptions.
First and foremost, I learned that preconceived opinions very quickly become templates that are simply imposed upon others. Not every conventional farmer destroys the environment, not everyone in conventional supermarkets exploits the farmers and consumers, although in both cases, there is a system behind it that does have negative effects on nature and on society. One can certainly regret and condemn the existence of such systems, but in my view, they are only changed through individual people, by individuals offering assistance in a way that makes room for freedom. Whether this assistance will be accepted remains to be seen.
How did you deal with associative thinking in the company?
I’m from a village in northern Luxembourg. When I was young, Catholicism was a significant influence there. During my school years, I came into contact with other ways of thinking. The Vietnam War was going on, and the German journal Stern published an entire issue with dramatic and bloody images of the war. The headline read, “The only excuse for God is that he does not exist.” At around the same time, I learned in biology that human beings consist only of cells made up of atoms and transmitted via inheritance, so not much remained of the actual human being. With this background, I read the book about Steiner I mentioned and was immediately curious to know what a “spiritual scientist” had to say. The book Philosophy of Freedom offered very interesting alternative viewpoints on the subject of God and the human being. Then, I became interested in practical topics. These were the agricultural and world-economic courses [of Rudolf Steiner]. Since we first established our marketing structure, we’ve had a voluntary reading circle among our employees. We also give lectures as part of the “Oikopolis in Dialogue” series.
At the age of 71, you moved to the supervisory board of the Oikopolis Group and handed over your operational responsibilities to your successors. This transition coincided with a decline in sales in the Oikopolis Group, which was caused by reduced customer spending at the beginning of the war in Ukraine. This also led to a reduction in activities and staff (approx. 20 percent) for the first time. These two parallel processes presented a double challenge for the new team with Karin Weber, Ralf Leifgen, and Jutta Serwas.
I am very grateful to the new management. Their actions have put the entire group back on a strong footing and enabled us to engage in very good collaboration with most stakeholders. What surprised me, however, was that a few private shareholders in particular questioned our holistic approach. We realize that we need to invest more in communicating our economic philosophy. How do we understand and describe profit? This leads to the question of responsible ownership. Even if the majority ownership structure makes it difficult to sell the group of companies, other values held by investors can challenge the future of the enterprise.
What was important for the succession process?
Over the past few years, people have joined our group who had previously worked successfully in large conventional companies but were then looking for an alternative in order to gain new experiences, particularly in the ecological sector. The fact that this is happening at a time when the older generation of leaders is stepping down can certainly be seen as a stroke of good fortune.
Today, we visited the biodynamic Kass-Haff farm (approx. 105 hectares, cows, pigs, chickens, goats, organic cheese dairy, Naturata shop, kindergarten, café, and much more), which was founded about 15 years ago with the participation of the Oikopolis Group. This has become a meeting place where 8,000 children a year can learn about agriculture. The farm has achieved a high level of recognition in the state.3 If you were 25 years young again, what would you establish, develop, or take on today?
According to EU Agriculture Commissioner Christophe Hansen, 60 percent of farmers in the EU have no family successors. On the one hand, this means that farms will become larger and increasingly industrialized in the future. But it also means that new arrivals would have more opportunities if they could access the expensive land. In the future, there will be plenty of opportunities to purchase land and allocate it to young people who want to work in agriculture. I’m convinced that it will be worthwhile to take action in this area. And there are already some good solutions in this regard in the global biodynamic scene. In my view, in addition to the Independent School for Spiritual Science and the General Anthroposophical Society, there is a need for an association of enterprises that work in the same spirit. I am delighted that the World Goetheanum Association is thriving, and I am grateful that you and Ueli Hurter, in particular, are fully committed to the cause. I would certainly be happy to be more involved if I were 25 years younger.
Translation Joshua Kelberman
Image Änder Schanck with cow. Photo credit: Private collection
Footnotes
- Maria Josepha Krück von Poturzyn, ed., Wir erlebten Rudolf Steiner: Erinnerungen seiner Schüler [We experienced Rudolf Steiner: Recollections of his students] (Stuttgart: Verlag Freies Geistesleben, 1978); cf. A Man Before Others: Rudolf Steiner Remembered (Forest Row, East Sussex: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1979).
- Forschungsring e.V., Forschungsring für biologisch-dynamische Wirtschaftsweise, [Research circle for biodynamic agriculture], accessed Feb. 1, 2026.
- Cf. RTL Today, “Education, ecology, and passion: Kass farm delights children through organic farming,” RTL Today, May 5, 2025.
